


a truth as sweet as my name on your lips

by alexanderlightweight



Series: Words of October 2019 [11]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amnesia, BAMF Magnus Bane, Confusion, Delirium, Happy Ending, Happy Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Illnesses, M/M, Malec is Fine, Protective Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 10:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20890469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanderlightweight/pseuds/alexanderlightweight
Summary: whiskey can't mend a heart that doesn't know why it's broken and alec can't forget the husband no one knows he has





	a truth as sweet as my name on your lips

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really intend for it to go the direction it did but then... it happened so?
> 
> welcome to whumptober day 3: delirium

“Magnus?” Alec called, his vision obscured by shadows. He felt overheated and trapped, locked by some strange and unyielding confinement. “Magnus!”

There was no response and Alec felt more lost than ever. In all things, Magnus was his point of stability, their home was his sanctuary and when the world crashed around them, Magnus’ arms were the place where he too could fall apart.

Here, in this never-ending darkness, he was alone.

Alec struggled against harsh, unfamiliar hands grabbed his arms and shoulders. They held him down roughly, hoarse voices shouting loud words and demanding his attention. 

Alec refused to give it. If they wanted him to listen, to calm down and respond to their orders and restrains than they were fools. Alec would fight his way free from this captivity or Magnus would rescue him. There was no alternative.

At one point, the voice reminded him of Jace’s voice. However he flinched from the hands that accompanied it. It sounded like and may have even felt like his parabatai’s presence but that wasn’t enough to soothe him. If it were really Jace, then he would have found Magnus, not added to the torment and wrongness that Alec felt without his husband. 

They were the enemy, all of them.

They tried, time and again they sent familiar voices to him. Time and again they failed. 

Alec would wait forever if he needed to, but he would not give them what they wanted, no matter how painful it was and how tempting the comforting voice of his mother and the soothing coolness of her stolen palm felt. 

Finally, Alec let himself drift. They expected him to fight and he was, however wars weren’t waged only on the battlefield, they were waged in the minds of the leader. 

He played unconscious until the voices dimmed, when the lights faded and the hands left him, then he planned.

-

“He’s not getting any better.” Jace accused, “you promised that once the Silent Brother’s saw him, that they’d be able to heal him.”

“I know,” Maryse said. Her voice was thick and hoarse and she told herself that it was from talking, not from holding back tears. “However they don’t know what’s causing this. Whatever illness Alec has, not even their sacred runes can heal it.”

“Then call a Warlock.” Isabelle said, still young but so determined and strong despite her fear, “New York is full of powerful Warlocks. If hiring one through the Institute doesn’t work, then we can commission one personally!” 

“No Warlock is going to help us,” Maryse said, “the High Warlock has made sure of that. He’ll attend personally to the Institute if needed but the Lightwood family is blacklisted.”

“What? Why?” Both of her children asked and Maryse simply shook her head. The possibility of losing Alec was already too much, she couldn’t bear losing two more of her children when they realized that their brother might die because of her and Robert’s actions. 

“I’m not a Lightwood,” Jace suddenly said. “I can ask him to come as a Wayland, say that it’s for my parabatai. He doesn’t need to know it’s for a Lightwood.”

“If he finds out, the consequences will be harsh.” Maryse warned but her heart leapt, beating a little faster with renewed hope. 

“As long as he finds out _ after _ he heals Alec, then I’m okay with that.”

-

Magnus paced through his loft, back and forth and then again, repeating the pattern as he murmured incantation after incantation into the silent room. An empty bottle of whiskey lay abandoned on his floor, shards of crystal caught the sunlight from the glass he’d thrown against the wall in frustration. Shattering it had done nothing for his mood and the whiskey had done nothing to ease the heartbreak he felt.

Nothing helped with the devastation he felt, the empty longing in his heart or the hollowness of his soul. 

There was no reason for it. He hadn’t bared his heart to another in over a century. His walls were built up high and his defenses shored yet Magnus felt the most broken he’d ever been. 

He’d lost something. Something so dear to him that everything else paled in comparison.

When he found what was missing, he would protect it with every fiber of his being and shatter every single enemy in his way. Not his time in Edom under the _ loving _ care of his father had brought him this much agony. Never before had he endured such a torment as this and he would make sure that he never would again.

A fire-message appeared, flames waking him from his thoughts and he welcomed the distraction. A missive, from one of the Shadowhunters at the Institute. Some rather uninteresting and useless emotionality concerning that ridiculous parabatai bond and oh- _ well then _. He did need to clear his thoughts and what better to focus on than an illness not even the revered Silent Brother’s knew of.

Magnus gathered his magic around him, tempered the amount of alcohol in his blood and summoned a pouch of potions. In payment for his services he would extract a favor from the young Shadowhunter, it was also good to have an ace up one’s sleeve and he might need one every soon. 

-

The grey never lightened and the darkness never left him completely. Alec was thirsty, so thirsty that if he could he would have cried just to wet his lips with his own tears. His tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth and he no longer could call for his husband. 

Then the ache lessened. It still felt as though he were being torn apart, monsters reaching into his heart with sharp claws and shredding what belonged to Magnus. 

Despite the pain, he hoped.

-

Magnus knew immediately that something was amiss. His magic had practically begun to sing the moment he stepped into the Institute. The lackluster color of it remained, the pale dove grey that had replaced it’s normal cerulean hue, but it felt stronger. As though it had a purpose again.

-

“Magnus?” 

It was a Lightwood, but not just any Lightwood. It was his husband. Alexander Gideon Lightwood-_ Bane _. The love of his life, being restrained by straps and blankets while being surrounded by unknown Shadowhunters. 

Magnus couldn’t remember everything but he remembered enough. The blond one held some importance but his name escaped him. In the end, it didn’t matter and he only needed to know one thing. Magic surged, saturated with color and pushing aside every hindrance as Magnus stalked to the bed. His magic knew, just as he did that the man on the bed was his love. The light of his life and as it worked, as the ache soothed and the agony faded away he watched with bated breath as brilliant, hazel eyes opened. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed the color of Alexander’s eyes until he saw them again.

“Magnus!” Was said with such relief that Magnus knew it could only be an echo of what he felt himself. 

There was no doubt. Despite the gaps in his memory, this was his husband. Just as Alexander knew him, he knew Alexander and by every bit of power that he held in his body, they would be safe. 

Together.

Magnus moved without hesitation. The Shadowhunters were still too stunned to react as a portal formed and Alec, still weak reached to him from the bed. There was a pained, desperate noise from one of the fallen but they both ignored it. He caught Alexander, holding him up and pulling him close and then they were safe. The portal closed behind them and he gently let his husband fall back onto their bed, the golden sheets practically welcoming him as he lay where he would always belong.

A hand pressed to his cheek and he kissed the palm of Alec’s hand even as everything settled back into place. He felt whole again, complete and renewed and as his magic healed Alexander he knew from his husband’s adoring smile that he felt the same.

“I knew you would come.” 

“I knew I would find you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The reason no one recognizes Magnus' name from Alec calling it is because he thinks he's calling it but he's not actually saying anything coherent. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr as [alexanderlightweight](https://alexanderlightweight.tumblr.com)


End file.
